Electric sign



F. E. J. WILDE ELECTRIC SIGN Oct. 25, 1932.

3 Sheets-Sheet Filed Oct. 12, 1928 INVENTOR Y 6.3mm m&%

@Qi. 25 1332. -1 E w E L84A53 ELECTRIC SIGN Filed Oct. 12, 1928 5 Sheets-Sheet 2 1 INVEIN1;QR

4}! LII/Me BY M y ELECTRIC SIGN Filed 001:. 12. 1928 5 Sheets-Sheet 5 NVENTOR magmm Patented Oct. 25, 1932 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE FRANCIS E. J. WILDE, OF FOREST HILLS, NEW YORK ELECTRIC SIGN I Application fiiea bctober 12, 1928. serial No. 312,015.

stood that the form of structure employed P may vary without departure from the true spirit and broad scope of theinvention as hereinafter defined and claimed.

Fig.1 is a partly broken side elevation o the apparatus illustratingthe complete circuit of travel of the loose sign flashing plates; Fig. 2 is an enlarged horizontal sectional view of the contact bank as'on substantially the plane of line 22, Fig. 1; Fig. 3 is a further enlarged broken detail illustrating the construction and arrangements of the contacts; Fig. 4 is a detailedside elevation of one of the contact combs; Fig. 45a is a broken, front edge view of one of the spring contact combs; Fig. 5 is a broken sectional view illustrating a modification of the head or reversing portion of the apparatus; Fig. 6 is a horizontal sectional view as on line 6-6 of Fig. 1, showing particularly the plate lowering chains;

"5 Fig. 7 is a perspective view of one of the blank forms from which various letters are cut; Fig. 8 is a face view of two of the letter plates; Fig. 8a is an edge view of one of the letter plates; Fig. 9 is a broken detail showing the use of lighting and reflecting means for illustrating the movement of the sign plates as a talking sign window display; Fig. 10 is a broken detail of lighting means for accomplishing the same effect in the vertically travelling portion of the apparatus; Fig. 11 is a broken part sectional side elevation of another embodiment with the contact bank in the horizontal lower portion of the machine and showing feeding rollers for taking the used plates away from the chain conveyor which is associated with the contact bank.

The apparatus disclosed in Fig. 1 is of the same general type broadly covered in my prior Patents 1,626,899 and 1,626,900 involv ing a stack of letters or sign plates 1, which are abstracted from the bottom of thestack and carried in succession up past a bank of electric contactsZ, which are connected with thel'amps or other sign elements of the flashsign board. i One feature of the present invention consists in mounting the entire bank of con tacts in a frame 3, which is pivotally supheld at the top as by means of clamp screw 5, so that the entire set of contacts, when re-' leased at the top may be swung outward and downward exposing all contacts and rendering them accessible for inspection and repair. v This enables an operator to quickly find out if any contacts are injured or broken andto make what repairs are necessary.

Also in this construction the contacts are arranged in rows each a unit in itselfwhich may be'quiekly removed or slipped into place. Figs, 4 and 4a illustrate in edge and front views one of these units or so-called combs made up of a row of flat contact springs 6 clamped by insulating strips 7 8 in spaced relation on an insulating base plate 9. The forward ends of these springs are free to flex as at the bottom in Fig. 3, as contacted by the metal letters or designs 10 on the letter plates 11 and the rearward endsof the springs are angled'toward the back plates 9 as at 12, so as to make good spring frictional contact with the terminal posts 13 set in the stationary back panel 14. These'terminal posts receive the ends of the wires 15 leading to the signal lamps and by their actions as" abutments serve to releasably hold the combs in place, an end cleat 16 serving to hold the lowestcomb against the lower row of tennis nal posts. Thus in case of injury to anyone or a number of contacts'in a row, the entire comb can be quickly slipped out as a unit and a new comb can be quickly slipped back into its place, the vfrietional engagement of the springs'with the terminal posts being sufiiorted at thebottom at 4 and is releasably cient to hold the combs securely in position during the operation of the machine.

The sign plates are shown as taken from the foot of the stack by a pair of under-running chains 17 guided at the back of the stack over idlers 18 and extending from beneath the stack upwardly through a curved guideway l9,' thence upwardly in the vertical portion 20 of the guideway, rearwardly at the top in a curved to generally horizontal guideway 21, over guide rolls 22 and forwardly and down over guide rolls 23 to driving sprockets 24 at the bottom driven from reduction gearing in the box 25 by a suitable motor 26. The outwardly facing reaches 0! these chains are shown provided with lugs or abutments 27 which engage behind the sign plates at the foot of the stack and carry the same upwardly and rearwardly through the guides described, from whence they are tumbled in reverse relation on top of the stack;

The plate reversing means consists in the illustration of a turnover guide chute 28 leading from the rearward upper horizontal ortion of the guideway 21 downwardly and into the back of the stack. Vhere this reversing guide enters, the vertical stack confining guide 29, a spring 30 is shown for snapping or thrusting the plates as they come along down onto the top of the stack. The upper portion of this reversing guide is shown as a flexible rearwardly yielding sec tion 32 carrying a contact 33 normally enaging a contact 34, so that it for any reason 15 e lates jam in the throat of: this reversing gui e, an electric circuit in which the con tacts are connected will be broken to give warning or to actually stop the machine, the latter being accomplished for instance, by inter using these contacts in the motor circuit. To insure a proper downward feed of the plates in the stack, chains 35 are indicated at opposite sides of the stack, Figs. 1 and 6 havm lugs 36 to engage beneath the plates and todower them to be removed at a proper rate by the bottom conveyor. These chains may be driven in any suitable fashion by gearing from the motor 26 or by a separate motor. A cushion or buffer is indicated at 36 in Fig. 1 positioned at the front wall of the stack to cushion the plates as they drop from the reversi guide.

As ghe only connection between the contact machine and the sign board need be a cable carrying the wires to thelamps on the board, the machine may be located at any conveient point and may therefore be utilized for window display purposes or the like. Thus there is indicated at 37 in Fig. 1 a re fleeting lamp arranged in backer the up trav elling series of letter plates, so as to project its light forwardly through the plates, which in this instance, being made of transparent bakelite or the like, permit the letters to show less width than the plates.

and to be readable from in front of the machine at the arrow 38, so that observers at the machine can read what is being flashed on the sign board above or at some distant point.

A similar reading effect may be provided for at the lower horizontal reach of travel where a light source at 39 above the horizon tal portions of the chains shines through the transparent plates on to a mirror 40 placed on an incline, so as to show the letters on the plates as they travel along to the contact bank. This arrangement provides a horizontal reading of the letters or other matter being flashed upon the board.

The letters and plates employed in the machine are of special construction as indicated particularly in Figs. 8 and 8a and comprising sheets or strips of relatively thin insulating material having raised edge portions 41 forming tracks or runners and leaving a channel between them in which the metal letters 10 are fastened as by riveting or the like. These runners, it will be noted stand above the letters so that the plates will stack fiat one upon the other with the letter portions carrying none of the weight. If desired, the plates may have spacing extensions at one edge as indicated at 42, but these are not necessary if the letters are made of sufiiciently A convenient method of manufacturing the plates with the raised edges is to use material of a thickness to provide the desired height of runners and to then mill out the material between the edges to provide the channel, thus producing a plate with integrally formed runners and a letter carrying channel between the same.

The letters are shown made of relatively thin sheet metal, such as copper or other good conducting material and a special feature of this invention consists in forming a major portion of the letters of the alphabet from sheet metal blanks like that shown in Fig. 7 and comprising an oblong rectangular figure having parallel side and bottom bars 43-l3, 4A44 with the side bars 43- l3 connected above the center by a narrower cross bar 45. By snipping whichever of these bars or per tions are not required, most of the letters of the alphabet, such as B, C, D, E, F, G, H, etc, ma be quickly formed and with but very litt ewaste.

Instead of using chains to carry the plates throughout or practically throughout the entire circuit of travel, chains or conveyors may be used to carry the plates :1 part of the way and the plates themselves be used to push the plates in advance of them. The latter possibility is illustrated in Fig. 5, where the conveyor chains 17a are indicated as extending only up to the head of the vertical portion of the guideway, the plates in the re versing channel 28a being pushed one ahead of the other by the last plate at the topof the chains. In the construction under considerthe horizontal section of relatively short conveyor chains 17?) and by taking the leading plate from these chains by cooperating driven gripper rolls 46 located in the curved portion .964 of the guideway and arranged to cause the plates to push one ahead of the other up through the vertical portion 20a of the guideway and back over the upper portion 21a into the reversing channel 286. The pushing of this longer string of plates is made possible in this instance by locating the contact bank below within the range of conveyor chains so that the rest of the travel of the plates is idle and simply for the purpose of getting said plates, in reversed order, back on top of the stack.

in Fig. l the broken lines at 280 indicate how the reversing guide may be brought down further where a short stack of plates is to be I used and is intended to indicate also that difnt forms of reversing guides may be used in the same machine and that said guide may have detachable connection with the back of the stack and that the stack may be removable as a unit to enable the quick substitution of different stacks of letters in the same maiile ertain practical embodiments of the invention are illustrated, it will be readap reciated that many changes may be the structure and arrangement of parts al ithin hr ad scope of the claims. .gers by engagement or i operate as switches lamps across the sign board. and noted that by the construction and eat disclosed, these fingers remain d either by contact with the e supporting plate during r the machine and as the letl is quite thin, the varying dere is quite small. The contact thus are not snapped or sprung to r I e and so will continue in service practically indefinitely. On the other if there is breakage of contacts, the can quickly be located by swinging the contact bank to bring all the combs into view and by then replacing any combs having broken or defective contacts. The sign patterns are relatively light and inexpensive, but at the same time durable and lasting in service.

The teed rollers shown in Fig. 11 may be -1 air to flash travel of the feed chains, so as to relieve the chains 01 the plates and leave these chains simply the duty of extracting the plates from. the stack and carrying them past the control contacts. The Contact combs being of proper thickness to fillin the spaces between adjacent rows of terminal posts, enables the removable and interchangeable mounting of the combs entirely by said posts and the panel which carries them, it being noted that the combs removably it in such spaces with the insulating back plate of the comb resting against one row of the posts and against the panel and the inner ends of the contact springs at the face of the panel bearing solidly against the upper adjacent row of terminal posts. The small projections 47 on the springs prevent them from vv'orking out from bet-ween the clamping st aps when the combs are pushed down into place. keeping the pattern plates practically in edge to edge engagement during their travel past the contact bank, the springs have no opportunity to snap and vi brate and are therefore lrept at practically the same condition of fiexure all the'tiine so that the breakage loss is relatively small.

To preserve the proper spacing, the spring contact fingers are shown as held in the combs notching the clamp strips 7 and 8 and then arranging them with the teeth or projections on one entered in the grooves or notches in the other, Fig. ia, with the fiat springs held in said notches by the projections enteringthe same. This is a simple positive way of mounting the spring contacts and of holding them so that they will not twist out of parallel relation when the combs are detached from the rest of the apparatus.

The take-ofi rolls 46, Fig. 11 in addition to relieving the feed chains also prevent the lugs 27 on the chains from breaking or wearing the edges of the plates where the plates change their direction of travel in passing from the horizontal up into the vertical way, said rolls pulling the plates quickly away from the pins before the pins have a chance to pinch or 1' am the edges of the plates. The spring 30 at the top of the stack, Figf l, operates to snap the entering plates down onto the top of the stack, preventing them from turning over and also getting the leadin late out of the way before the next plate can interfere.

I claim:

1. Intalking sign apparatus, the combination of sign patterns, means for supporting said sign patterns in a stack, conveyor means associated with said stack supporting means for feeding the sign patterns in the stack, a contact bank and conveyor means for carrying the sign patterns from the stack to the driven at a slightly faster rate than the contact bank independently of but in timed relation to the feeding of the sign patterns in the stack. 7

2. In apparatus of the character disclosed, the combination of sign plates, a stack guide for holding said plates in superposed stacked relation, late feeding means arranged longitudinal y of the stack guide and in feeding engagement with the stacked sign plates, a contact bank and means for effecting transfer of the sign plates fed by said stack feeding means from the stack to said contact bank.

3. In apparatus of the character disclosed, the combination of a stack guide, sign plates held in superposed stacked relation in said stack guide, power feed means for shifting the sign plates out of the stack guide and additional power feed means for positively returning the sign plates back to the stack guide.

4. In apparatus of the character disclosed, the combination of a substantially vertical stack guide, sign plates in stacked relation in said guide, a contact bank adapted for actuation by said sign plates and disposed directly in front of said stack guide, a conveyor chain for carrying the sign plates from the foot of said stack guide forwardly to said contact bank, aid conveyor chain extending upwardly from said contact bank and in a rearwardl arching curve over the top of the stack guide and downwardly and forwardly curving guide means extending from said conveyor chain for returning sign plates from the contact bank and for reversing the same by the power of the conveyor chain onto the top of the stack.

5. In apparatus of the character disclosed, the combination of a stack guide, a stack of sign plates in said stack guide, means for removing the sign plates from the foot of the Stack guide and for returning them into the top of the stack guide and spring means at the top of the stack guide for seating the sign plates on top of the stack of plates in the stack uide.

6. n apparatus of the character disclosed, the combination of a stack guide, a stack of sign plates in said stack guide, a contact bank, a guide for directing said sign plates from one end of the stack guide past the contact bank and into the opposite end of the stack guide, conveyor means for advancing said sign plates through the described cycle of movement, said guide being open between the contact bank and stack guide to expose the series of sign plates travelling therethrough and means for illuminating the travelling sign plates passing through the guide at such point of exposure.

In testimony whereof I affix my signature.

FRANCIS E. J. WILDE. 

